I scarcely had the book in my hands than I was eager to read it, so we went into one of those immense beer halls which are everywhere in Germany. We sat down and ordered two enormous bocks like our neighbors had. Among the various groups were students who were easily picked out by their scholars' caps and were playing cards or other games, nearly all with porcelain pipes in their mouths. On the other hand there were few women. It is needless to tell what I endured in that thick, foul air laden with the bitter odor of beer. But I could not stop reading those burning letters full of the most intense passion. Indeed what could be more suggestive than the following lines, remembered among so many others, where keen anguish threw Werther and Charlotte into each other's arms after the thrilling reading of Ossian's verses? "Why awakest me, breath of the Spring? Thou caresseth me and sayeth I am laden with the dew of heaven, but the tune cometh when I must wither, the storm that must beat down my leaves is at hand. To-morrow the traveler will come; his eye will seek me everywhere, and find me no more...." And Goethe adds: "Unhappy Werther felt crushed by the force of these words and threw himself before Charlotte in utter despair. It seemed to Charlotte that a presentiment of the frightful project he had formed passed through her soul. Her senses reeled; she clasped his hands and pressed them to her bosom; she leaned towards him tenderly and their burning cheeks touched." Such delirious, ecstatic passion brought tears to my eyes. What a moving scene, what a passionate picture that ought to make! It was _Werther_, my third act. I was now all life and happiness. I was wrapped up in work and in an almost feverish activity. It was a task I wanted to do but into which I had to put, if possible, the song of those moving, lively passions. Circumstances, however, willed that I put this project aside for the moment. Carvalho proposed _Phoebé_ to me and chance led me to write _Manon_. Then came _Le Cid_ to fill my life. At last in the summer of 1885, without waiting for the result of that opera, Hartmann, Paul Milliet, my great, splendid collaborator in _Hérodiade_, and I came to an agreement to take up the task of writing _Werther_. In order to incite me to work more ardently (as if I had need of it) my publisher--he had improvised a scenario--engaged for me at the Reservoirs at Versailles, a vast ground floor apartment on the level of the gardens of our great Le Notre. The room in which I was installed had a lofty ceiling with Eighteenth Century paneling and it was furnished in the same period. The table at which I wrote was the purest Louis XV. Hartmann had chosen everything at the most famous antiquarians. Hartmann had special aptitude for doing his share of the work. He spoke German very well; he understood Goethe; he loved the German mind; he stuck to it that I should undertake the work.